For those unaware, Lunar New Year was celebrated this past weekend. However, this year was different than many others – notably absent were the large gatherings at restaurants and the excitement of the holiday. Instead, family members opted for virtual well-wishes… and turning to anger on social media to post “vitriolic comments and mocking memes” about the Chinese government for allegedly minimizing the extent of the outbreak in China and for censoring crucial information relating to the health of its citizens. The astounding amount of criticism posted to social media outlets has “made it difficult for Beijing to control the message.”
Some of the content posted on the internet post-outbreak include:
A virtual dashboard created by Johns Hopkins to track the virus spread and total deaths:
https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6
Some disturbing videos of people collapsing on the street due to the coronavirus (though the authenticity of these videos have not been confirmed) – Note: these videos can to disturbing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8_1wU1tySo
Devastating conditions of hospitals overrun with patients, and resorting to leaving bodies in the hallways (Again, the video is disturbing):
https://nypost.com/2020/01/24/coronavirus-outbreak-video-shows-dead-bodies-in-halls-of-china-hospital/
As a result, the Chinese government has taken measures to not only contain the virus, but surprisingly, has had to turn its efforts to contain the virality of challenges online. These implications beg the question: how has the age of social media affected the ways in which countries conduct crisis response?
In what ways has the internet created increased dangers in the midst of an outbreak? Can virtual virality be just as deadly?
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See the original NYT articles here:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/27/technology/china-coronavirus-censorship-social-media.html
I think its important that we have social media allow us to interact with what is happening around the world, especially outbreaks like this. We need to stay informed about what is being done and what the outcomes are. Especially if the Chinese government wanted to play down how bad this virus is and if people were travelling to China not knowing the actual impact this virus has. Without social media it would disable us from knowing the true magnitude of this virus. Example, the SARS outbreak in the early 2000’s, we did not know how bad it truly was because the coverage was based off of new outlets like the paper or new channels and those are not live updates like we get through our phones now.
I came across this article , which discusses how BlueDot, an AI algorithm is attempting to use news reports and airline ticketing data to track the spread of the coronavirus and those similar to it. It suggests that AI might be effectively employed as an epidemiologist.
Interestingly, the article notes that the article does not use social media because the “data is too messy.”